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Myrtle (Heath) Geisler
Eagar, AZ
Interview: February 17, 2011
I was born in Bernalillo, New Mexico on August 31, 1937. My Mother, Florence Etta Hadley, was born in Missouri in 1920. She was 91 when she passed away this year. Her parents brought her to New Mexico on their way to California during hard times. They stopped there and cut logs for awhile for the Heaths in the Jemez Mountains. Then they went on, and left my mother at the potato farm. That is where she and my dad met. My father, Glenn Ervin Heath, was born in Clausen, NM in 1912.
My dad’s grandparents were Annie and George Heath. My grandfather changed his name to George because he didn’t like his real name. My grandfather, my dad, and my husband all logged.
I went to school in quite a few places, wherever we were logging during that time. It was back and forth between Arizona and New Mexico. Then I dropped out of school in Mancos, Colorado to marry my husband. My parents were logging up there then in1954. Mancos was quite different to me because we lived in town and it had high school. I worked in the drug store and really liked it there.
When I was growing up I mostly did baby- sitting. I was the oldest in my family with three little brothers, and so I did a lot of baby-sitting. I made beds and washed dishes. I didn’t do a whole lot of cooking because my mom was real particular about cooking. We didn’t raise a garden or cattle. The Heaths had raised cattle, but we were back and forth with logging, wherever there wasn’t too much snow at the time.
When did your family first come to the White Mountains?
The Heaths were here early. Paul Ramsey, a cousin, logged here when I was 4 years old so that was about 1941, as far back as I can remember. We lived over near McNary, closer to Pinetop at that time. Then we moved into McNary for awhile. My brother, Virgil, was born when we lived in Pinetop. Then we moved up into the mountains near Whiteriver because they were logging up around there. We lived at Chevelon, (near Winslow) when I was quite young.
When did the Heaths first come to the Luna area?
My parents moved to Luna in 1943. My dad’s grandparents came down from Utah and they homestead at Ramah and McGaffey. They were Mormon, and according to family history, were sent down to buy land in Arizona. They originated from Mississippi. A lot of them were sent from there to Utah to buy land. Then they were sent to New Mexico and Arizona. They came to St. Johns. My great grandpa ended up buying land in New Mexico at McGaffey. I remember living at Quemado, NM when I was about 6. We logged over there and I started to school there. My dad came home from work one night and he said, “Do you want to go to Hollywood?” I thought he meant Hollywood, California. So he went down to Hollywood, NM to talk to a Mr. White to see if he would come out there to the camp and teach. He came and he was the man who was born without legs, but he had feet. He could lift himself up on the chair. If we talked or misbehaved, he’d get off that chair and he’d come with his ruler, and we had to hold out our hand and get it slapped. We were living there at a saw mill that Paul Ramsey had. That was a fun place to live because we had a lot of kids around. There were lots of cousins because there were a lot of the Heaths around, Bud Heath, Paul Ramsey, and other cousins that I knew.
Can you tell us about your aunts and uncles, the Fuentes that lived in Luna?
I remember the two aunts, Nellie and Mary, who were sisters. They were sweet women. Nellie was married to George Fuentes, and Mary was married to his brother, Raymond Fuentes. They had more kids than my mom and dad did. They farmed there, and logged too. They were the first Fuentes to live there that I know of. In the Luna family history with my great grandpa, there was a mention of a Fuentes. My husband and I tried to figure out where the Fuentes came from. There were a few people named Fuentes that came down from Utah, I think, so maybe that is where Mary and Nellie met the Fuentes. The little time that I lived there, I thought they were great families. Of course I’ve been around them a lot at family reunions and we always had great times. I know a few of them around here in Eagar.
We lived in Luna when I was six, and had this white Studebaker-like car. One funny story I remember, was that my dad played music. I guess he was playing for a dance, probably for a high school dance at Reserve. I remember my mom getting mad at him. Either he was flirting with the high school girls or they were flirting with him. I remember she got mad and left him there and drove home. And it was real curvy from Reserve to Luna. We used to go to sleep and sleep all the way until we got home, because it was scary. When my dad came in he was very happy. He told her, as she was handing him the blankets to sleep on the floor, “I don’t care if you left me there. I got to ride home on the high school cus and it was lots of fun.”
When did you first come to Round Valley?
My husband and I came to Round Valley about 35 years ago. He came down here with Howard Ramsey to log. We’ve lived here ever since. Two of my kids grew up here. One of them was married when we came down here. She had gotten married before we left the Jemez Mountains. The last three went to school here and still live around here, except one daughter, who moved to Oregon. The rest of them live here. Right now my three sons are busy hauling chips out of the woods.
Do you remember any hunting or fishing stories when you were growing up?
I have one funny story of my mom learning to shoot about that time. She wanted to hunt a deer that year in Luna. Evidently, she was hunting because we were in the car. My dad came by in the log truck and he stopped and they were sitting there when they saw the deer. He got down on his hands and knees for her to place the gun across his back and every time she shot he raised up. I couldn’t remember if she got the deer then, but we have a picture of the deer on the door of that house we lived in, so evidently she got the deer. I just remember my dad raising up and messing up her shot every time.
How did you celebrate Christmas and Thanksgiving ?
Well we usually celebrated by having turkey. If we didn’t have turkey we always had Thanksgiving dinners. We had picnics with other members of the family and friends that lived in the camps and the little towns where we lived. We always celebrated.
Did your parents talk about how things were during the depression in the 1930s?
That was probably about the time that my parents got married. I know they had hard times during that time. You know logging wasn’t as hard hit at that time because it was seasonal. I know we didn’t have much but I don’t remember the times being real hard. I know later they had hard times. My mom would shoot rabbits. She was well known for shooting rabbits or hunting turkey or something to keep meals on the table. One time she shot these fuzzy birds. I don’t know what kind they were, but it took four or five of them to make a little pot of soup. We probably had a lot of out-of-season deer meat. I remember in Quemado, my dad had poached some deer and everybody around camp had some of it.
I came home from school one time and he was sitting at the table mad, because Mom had been gone that day and she left him some fried rabbit for lunch. Of course when the game wardens came in and inspected they thought that it might be squirrels because they were illegal to kill at that time. They handled that meat and he was so mad because they had ruined his lunch.
Most of the times were hard for women in those days, because they carried water to wash in and heated it on the stoves. They scrubbed clothes on the wash board. They had no electricity, just kerosene lamps. My mom was one that was afraid of bed bugs. Every time we moved into a place she sprayed every crack with DDT before we moved in. I never remember us having bed bugs.
Did you have newspapers or radios when you were little?
We had radio, but not newspapers. I don’t remember the stations. I just remember we listened because we liked music. We’d always gather around when it was news time, especially during the Korean War. My step dad (my mother had remarried Ronald King at that time) had a brother over there in the Korean War. He was in that bunch that had to walk two hundred miles. I remember them being sure they got the news every day to know how he had come out. My dad had several brothers, and one younger brother, Chub, had gone into the service, as well as Charles, the youngest.